The zombie themed DayZ mod for Bohemia Interactive's military shooter ArmA II became a surprise viral hit earlier this year, so it was no big shock when Bohemia announced it had bought the rights to make a stand alone DayZ game. This week, the first screenshots from the stand alone version were released.

In a post on the official DayZ blog, its lead developer, Dean Hall, showed off some very early work that has been done inside one of the homes in the game, with "only basic texture work and initial lighting passes." He added:

The village I used to take the screenshot in now has all its buildings enterable, including the sheds. Most focus has so far been on the buildings that are situated outside of the center, but focus now is turning to doing interiors for the city buildings. This is complicated by our desire to dramatically increase performance, and given the scene complexity inside cities we need to balance this with the desire to increase building scavenging opportunities inside the cities.

The stand alone version of DayZ is currently scheduled to be released sometime before the end of 2012. Hall has said in earlier interviews that the first version will be sold cheaply with more features added in the coming months.